I like the way you're thinking.
What do you recommend? I haven't played with Linux in about 18 years, (back then it was Ubuntu and Gentoo)... what the going recommendations now?
(Disclaimer: Still stuck on NixOS, am myself "meh" about the language and have only dabbled in Guix, still need to commit a machine to it)
That said, I still find nix difficult to understand and learn, and when I get stuck on something it seems extremely frustrating to unstick myself.
I would love to try Guix, mostly because I think building on an existing language would have solved many of my issues with nix, but the whole point for me is that I want a stable config across all of my platforms; the “non free” restrictions guix poses has gated me from it.
Made it seem like troubleshooting was going to be way more difficult than it was worth.